Join me for a great event on April 24 - New Journalism / New Media and the impact on PR

As member of the board at 3C - the Corporate Communications Community - I have the opportunity to suggest and organise topical events and this is one I really am looking forward to...

A mobile newsroom carrying reporters at high speed on the road and on the web…

An online only news-site, launched in just a couple of months and catering to the “Change Generation”…

The job of a reporter has changed dramatically since the arrival of the social web and – by definition – has also an impact on our media relations practice.

Discover these latest developments via two Belgian media projects:

The Mobile Newsroom – A project by Damien Van Achter, TEDx Speaker, ex-Social Media Manager at the RTBF and currently professor of online journalism at IHECS. Damien will give us the latest trends in online newsgathering and explain the concept behind his mobile newsroom project.

Newsmonkey.be : The latest news site in Belgium, focusing 200% on the online community will be discussed by Wouter Verschelden, ex- editor in Chief of De Morgen – and now Publisher at Newsmonkey. He will explain why there is an opportunity in the online media landscape and why they are targeting the “change generation” specifically.

Both speaker and the moderator will then take questions and discuss the impact of these developments on the role of media relations and external communication from a corporate point of view.

Last Thursday I spoke at the KPMG Luxembourg event around their recently published and very interesting "Digital Marketing Survey".

The survey gives an in depth analysis of the Luxembourg market - cross industry - and distills the challenges most companies face when it comes to using their online channels for client outreach.

I was asked to comment the findings with a keynote presentation at the KPMG headquarters during a client event.

Here's what I covered (in broad lines) with regards to the main challenges:

Strategy: I see this time and time again - companies who suddenly realise that the online world has changed and start by "jumping the gun" and create channels on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook (the usual suspects) without a clear strategy.

Resources: a lack of skilled professionals, investment in training and a murky operational set up. Who owns digital marketing ? Who will manage our social media channels ? My point here was that - as long as we compartiment "Marketing" - "Public Relations" and other communication functions we will never use online's potential at its fullest.

Return on Investment: the "killer" question... how can you prove the return of online ? By clearly stating and researching realistic objectives, integrating on and offline tactics and focusing on the right metrics. I often see very elaborated tactics while a good cleanup (and professional use) of an email database could bring direct ROI.

If you are interested in the Luxembourg market, the survey of KPMG is definitely worth a look. You can find it online or download the iOS or Android application.

While I heard some people say that these challenges are maybe related to the market in Luxembourg I do think that the top challenges are international and definitely European.

KPMG Digital Marketing Survey 2013

We still have a long way to go but I do feel a shift in many companies and with clients recently. Maybe 2014 will the "break through" year ?

This was a very interesting piece of research and a great event as well.